Welfare Reform Bill

My Lords, as has been said by my noble friend Lady Sherlock, the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, has made a powerful case in principle. Like the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay, I am not quite sure that the formulation set down here is quite right, as it lumps together sanctions, penalties and recovery of overpayments, and there might be arguments for unpicking those. It would be helpful, in any event, if, following this debate, we could have in writing a note as to what information decision-makers would routinely have in front of them when they make the decision with regard to each of those various categories. That would help us as we move to Report. We debated issues around the claimant commitment earlier, as has been said. My noble friend Lady Lister made the important point again about that being more about co-production rather than something that is delivered and given to the claimant. That is an important point. As my noble friend Lady Sherlock said, we are dealing with people whose resources are, almost by definition, incredibly stretched. In many cases they are on the edge. If we are going to further reduce the means that they have, then we ought to be very clear that we do that in the knowledge of all of the circumstances and the impact on their well-being.